After a van plowed through a crowd of pedestrians in Barcelona on Thursday, killing at least 13 people and wounding scores more, President Donald Trump tweeted a reference to a discredited story about Gen. John Pershing halting Muslim attacks in the Philippines by shooting rebels with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood.

“Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught,” Trump wrote on his personal account. “There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years.”

It was at least Trump's second reference to a story already labeled false last year, this time coming days after the president justified his equivocal response in assigning blame for violence in Charlottesville by saying that before he makes a statement, "I need the facts."

The Pershing story, which Trump also recounted at the end of a rally in South Carolina in February 2016, has been debunked by several fact-checking organizations, including Politifact and Snopes. Politfact labeled it Pants on Fire! false on its Truth-O-Meter and Snopes called it “false.”

The story — which according to Trump’s telling had Pershing shooting 50 Muslim terrorists with 50 bullets dipped in pigs blood — grew out of the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. The United States had obtained the islands from Spain but faced armed opposition that continued after the war, when Pershing served as governor of the heavily Muslim Moro Province. Politifact found references to Muslim insurgents being buried with dead pigs but not being killed with bloodied bullets and not by Pershing.

“This story is a fabrication and has long been discredited,” Brian McAllister Linn, a Texas A&M University historian and author of Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940, told Politifact. “I am amazed it is still making the rounds.”

Even if the tale were true, Politifact wrote, it had no pacifying effect. The region remains in unrest today.

Snopes noted that Pershing thought the best approach was not to encourage religious fanaticism.

“Nonetheless, the ‘discouraging Muslim terrorists by burying them with pigs’ concept is still invoked in the modern era, even if the evidence of its use (or success) remains nebulous,” Snopes wrote.

Trump’s tweet Thursday came after Catalan officials had confirmed a terrorist attack but were still trying to identify the suspect they arrested.

That was in stark contrast to Trump's actions in the hours and days after an alleged white nationalist, James Allen Fields Jr., was accused of driving a car through a crowd in Charlottesville, North Carolina, over the weekend, killing counter-protester Heather Heyer.

Trump defended his delayed response in calling out white supremacists by name until two days after the attack by saying he didn’t “know all the facts.”

“I think there is blame on both sides,” Trump went on to say this week, doubling down on his initial take that “many sides" were to blame for violence in Charlottesville.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized Trump for tweeting false information soon after the Barcelona attack, while claiming he needed “facts” before responding to the white nationalists and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville.

“We condemn the terror attack in Barcelona, and we condemn President Trump's irresponsible and Islamophobic response to that attack,” said the group's executive director, Nihad Awad.

Trump's Pershing tweet Thursday followed an earlier, more restrained one, expressing sympathy for the people of Barcelona.

“The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help,” Trump wrote. “Be tough & strong, we love you!”

During a combative press conference Tuesday, President Donald Trump dubbed the anti-racist protest groups the "alt-left" and blamed "both sides" for the violent clashes that resulted one death, and injured more than a dozen others, NBC News reported.

Who exactly are the protesters that violently clashed with white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia?

What is 'Antifa?'Antifa is short for "anti-fascist." It is a loosely organized coalition of protesters, left-wing activists, and self-described anarchists who vow to physically confront "fascists" — meaning anyone who espouses bigoted or totalitarian views, NBC News reported.

How long have they been around?Anti-government and anti-fascist protesters have disrupted protest movements in Europe for decades. Today, they are most frequently seen clashing with riot police during summits of major world leaders, as in last month's "Welcome to Hell" protest against G-20 leaders in Berlin.

What are they protesting?In the wake of President Trump's election, Antifa organizations across the country issued rallying cries on social media to rise up and fight back against the wave of hate crimes and white nationalism that's spiked across the nation.

Anti-hate groups in the United States are giving guidance on what individuals can do to combat hate-inspired violence in the wake of a deadly attack at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

To counter hate-inspired attacks in the U.S., Americans must join forces, speak out and educate themselves about the history and ideology of white nationalists and hate organizations, groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League argue.

The SPLC on Monday issued a step-by-step "community response guide" on how to fight hate after 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed when a car plowed into counter-protesters at the rally. Her alleged killer, James Fields Jr., had been fascinated with Nazism and idolized Adolf Hitler, according to his high school teacher.

To show why the guide is needed now more than ever, the SPLC noted a number of recent U.S. hate crimes, including the 2015 Charleston church shooting and racist graffiti being found in a school in Stapleton, Colorado.

"Others share your desire to stand against hate," the SPLC wrote in the guide, under the "join forces" section. "There is power in numbers. Asking for help and organizing a group reduces personal fear and vulnerability, spreads the workload, and increases creativity and impact."

The guide adds, "A hate crime often creates an opportunity for a community’s first dialogue on race, gender identity, or religious intolerance. It can help bridge the gap between neighborhoods and law enforcement."

The ADL similarly published a curriculum for teachers on how the violence in Charlottesville is a "teachable moment." The curriculum noted it should be described in the correct historical context and could be used to further understanding of the First Amendment.

"While freedom of speech means that you can share your opinions and exchange ideas freely without government control — even if it is hateful — there is some speech that is not protected by the First Amendment; this includes obscenity, defamation, true threats, and incitement to imminent lawless action," the curriculum stated. "Talk with students about the First Amendment and our freedoms and emphasize that condemning hatred, bias and white supremacy and vigorously protecting free speech are not mutually exclusive."

An NAACP leader told NBC that understanding the ideologies held by groups like the opposing sides that clashed in Charlottesville is instrumental in ending hate-inspired violence.

"Understanding what the ideologies are, the arguments and the realities of the vision each side seeks, is crucial," said Hilary Shelton, the NAACP's Washington bureau director.

"On one side of the equation, you had those that believe in white supremacy, racial segregation and treating those leaders of the confederacy as heroes," Shelton said. "On the other side of the issue ... you had those that wanted to promote diversity, equal opportunity."

To Shelton, if people truly grasp the difference between the two sides, hate groups will not thrive.

The only African-American member of President Donald Trump's cabinet says his home in Northern Virginia was recently the target of anti-Trump vandals.

Ben Carson, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, told News4 in an exclusive interview inside his home Wednesday night that he believes dialogue can help overcome hate and bigotry.

He pointed out that many Confederate statues were erected "during the civil rights movement, to make a statement," and resisted "pointing fingers" at Trump's response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Carson said his home was vandalized earlier this summer while he was away.

"That really is the message that I try to get out to people. You can't necessarily control the animosity and the hatred of someone else, but you can control how you react," he said.

A representative for the local police department said they did not receive a report of the incident. Carson said he did not report it because he believes in ignoring hate and "taking the high road."

When asked about the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend and the removal of Confederate monuments, Carson said he believed education is key.

"We need to explain to people that many of the Confederate monuments that were put up were put up specifically during the Jim Crow era, specifically during the civil rights movement, to make a statement," he said.

Fitzgerald asked him several times if Trump's response to the deadly violence displayed the leadership the country needs.

"I want to push back and say it's not about pointing fingers about who should have done what and when they should have done it and when they should have said it," Carson said.

He added that strong leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have the power to bring a nation together. But, he said, it's not up to Trump to bring the country together; it's up to the American people.

Carson first spoke about the vandalism of his home in a Facebook post published Wednesday afternoon. He said that several years ago, after he and his family bought a farm in rural Maryland, a neighbor immediately put up a Confederate flag. Other neighbors put up American flags to shame him, Carson said.

"Hatred and bigotry unfortunately still exists in our country and we must all continue to fight it, but let's use the right tools," he wrote. "By the way, that neighbor who put up the Confederate flag subsequently became friendly. That is the likely outcome if we just learn to be neighborly and to get to know each other."

Photo Credit: NBC Washington This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.]]>Wed, 16 Aug 2017 20:05:08 -0400http://media.nbcwashington.com/images/213*120/trumpinnercities_17319471_1-150292719607000001.jpg

President Donald J. Trump told reporters on Tuesday that "fixing the inner cities" is a priority for his administration.

Five top U.S. military officers condemned bigotry following the white-nationalist led protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, even as President Donald Trump reverted to his initial position of blaming both sides for violence there.

Their comments appear to stray from those of Trump, who said the “alt-left” should also be held accountable.

“The shameful events in Charlottesville are unacceptable and must not be tolerated,” wrote Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson in a Facebook post on Saturday. “The Navy will forever stand against intolerance and hatred.”

Following Trump’s impromptu news conference Tuesday, in which he doubled down on previous statements placing the blame “on many sides,” officials from the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force released statements.

Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow for the Center for a New American Security, a think tank that explores military issues, said that past difficulties combatting white supremacists within the military ranks may be what caused the leaders to speak up.

“The U.S. military had a significant problem with white supremacists and Neo-Nazis in the late '80s, early '90s,” he said. “It was all codified that you cannot belong to these groups. You cannot espouse their views, you can’t say you’re a member.”

Since Saturday, it’s been revealed that two members of Vanguard America, one of the extremist groups involved in this weekend’s violent clashes, have links to the military.

One of those men was James A. Fields, who was accused of killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer when he drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors.

“James Alex Fields reported for basic military training in August of 2015,” Army Lt. Col. Jennifer Johnson stated in an email. “He was, however, released from active duty due to a failure to meet training standards in December of 2015.”

Dillon Ulysses Hopper, the alleged leader of Vanguard America, was identified by news website Splinter as a veteran and former Marine recruiter. A representative from Vanguard America told Splinter that Hopper became a white supremacist in 2012, one year after he started working as a recruiter. Several other news outlets including CNN, later reported that according to Hopper's service records, he was a member of the Marine Corps from 2006 until 2017.

Dempsey said the statements from the military leaders were most likely made in an attempt to reaffirm the military’s commitment to their rules barring hate groups and send a strong message to subordinates about what type of behavior is appropriate.

“None of them would directly go against the president just to go against the president, because that’s not the way the military was built,” said Dempsey, a combat veteran who previously served as a special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The chiefs were walking a very fine line but they saw a threat to the force.”

In a post-draft era, promoting acceptance and tolerance has become more of a priority for the military.

“For the first time since World War II, the military has to think about ‘What does our image look like? How are we going to recruit? How do we make sure we have a broad enough talent pool?’” Dempsey said.

Surely, as a baseline, any person of any measure of goodwill simply could say a protest that includes waving a Nazi swastika flag is worthy of full-throated condemnation. Yet, there is some equivocation and false equivalency on the fault of the violence.

Such hateful protests by white supremacists, if peaceful, are protected by the same rights that allow peaceful demonstrations such as January’s Women’s March, the LGBT March on Washington in June, and the annual March for Life against abortion that is held each January.

“Peaceful” being the key word.

On Monday, we heard from D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“In a life spent striving for equal rights, I am accustomed to setbacks,” she said in a statement. “No setback I have known, however, has been as foreseeable as the attacks in Charlottesville. The reemergence of white supremacist and neo-Nazi affiliated hate groups, and even the KKK, and their relationship to the Trump presidency, now cannot be doubted.”

Noting President Trump’s stumbling responses, Norton said he may be unifying the country “not by his words, but by his failure to learn the lesson of 400 years of slavery and racial oppression.”

The reverberations from Charlottesville will continue to play out from presidential to state and local politics. And certainly it is now an issue in the ongoing campaign for governor of Virginia.

President Trump has personally but belatedly condemned in unmistakable words Nazism and far-right, white supremacy. Critics say his measured words on Saturday blaming “many sides” in Charlottesville were a dog-whistle code to some of his supporters on the far right.

Some in the Trump administration and other national Republicans have no trouble being more direct about the violence and death. “Certainly I think we can confidently call it a form of terrorism,” Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch was also not equivocating: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

In Virginia there is an election for governor in November. The Charlottesville violence prompted denunciation from all sorts of Democrats and most Republicans. (We say “most” because Republican 2018 Senate candidate Cory Stewart offered a general denunciation of violence and law-breaking, but not specifically the Nazi-inspired right.)

“He should look in the mirror,” Signer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding that Trump’s first words “go right to the gutter and play to our worst prejudices … a tide of coarseness and bullying.”

Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, thought to be considering a 2020 run for president, is not one normally shy about national publicity. But he made it a point to avoid the Sunday talk shows last weekend.

“I was invited today to go on a lot of TV shows. I turned them all down,” he said from the pulpit of the Mount Zion First African Baptist Church in Charlottesville. “This is not about politics; it’s about who we are as American citizens.”

But, of course, this is about politics. “Politics” is not a bad word. It’s how our government functions. But there are good politics and bad politics. It was good politics for the governor to have invited Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam to stand with him in the church. Northam is the Democratic candidate to succeed McAuliffe, locked in a political race for governor with Republican nominee Ed Gillespie.

Northam has been unabashed in placing blame for Charlottesville. “We need to make it clear to those responsible for yesterday’s violence: White supremacy has no safe harbor in the United States of America,” he tweeted.

Gillespie was no less direct. “We’ve seen evil in white supremacist torches and howling neo Naziism,” he tweeted. “Definitely tragic effect of vile neo Nazi and white supremacist actions.”

■ That Lee statue in Charlottesville. The statue of Robert E. Lee that brought the far-right demonstrators to Virginia has a connection to Washington. The lead sculptor was Henry Merwin Shrady, who is best known for the huge Ulysses S. Grant Memorial on the west front of the U.S. Capitol.

Shrady was commissioned in 1917 to do the Lee statue, but he died before it was finished. Leo Lentelli finished it in 1924. It stands 26 feet high and joined the list of the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

The park in which the statue stands originally was named “Lee Park.” Charlottesville’s city council recently renamed it “Emancipation Park.” The political fight over removing the Lee statue is ongoing.

■ A final word. The Ward 8 community said farewell Saturday to William “Cardell” Shelton. Family and friends celebrated his life during a service at the Ambassador Baptist Church on Minnesota Avenue SE. Your Notebook went to say goodbye to the 87-year-old civic activist and former advisory neighborhood commissioner who never minced words about his passion — encouraging the city to do more to get young men into well-paying jobs in the vocational and building trades. Shelton knew there were good jobs to be had. Advocates for job training have lost a true friend.

Tom Sherwood, a Southwest resident, is a political reporter for News 4.

The district is currently held by Republican Del. Mark Dudenhefer, who is not seeking re-election. The previous Republican candidate, Laquan Austion, withdrew from the race earlier this month after overstating his academic accomplishments.

What does the federal government want to do with records on everyone who visited an anti-Donald Trump website?

The Justice Department's demand is part of the ongoing case against people who allegedly broke laws while protesting President Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, NBC News reported. Prosecutors say the website, DisruptJ20.org, was used to organize "a violent riot."

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington D.C., which is prosecuting the protesters in local courts, points out that the warrant has already been approved by a judge.

But the target of the search warrant, a web-hosting company that has provided information about the people who registered for the site, says federal officials have gone too far by seeking IP addresses for anyone who entered the site.

At a press event that was supposed to focus on infrastructure, President Donald Trump answered questions about violence that erupted at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. He again blamed both sides for violence and described counter-protesters as the "alt-left."

The Congressional Budget Office says Obamacare premiums will increase by 20 percent next year and by 25 percent in 2020 — if President Donald Trump ends key federal subsidies to the program.

The CBO report released Tuesday also found that if the administration moves to cut the billions in subsidies to insurers, that would leave about 5 percent of Americans living in areas with no access to individual health care plans.

Immigrant rights groups and allies are marking the fifth anniversary of protections for young immigrants with rallies and demonstrations Tuesday, as the future of an Obama-era program remains uncertain under the Trump administration, NBC News reports.

On Aug. 15, 2012, the Obama administration began accepting applications for the deportation relief and work permission program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. In five years, about 800,000 people have been granted DACA, which must be renewed every two years.

Texas and nine other states have set a Sept. 5 deadline for the president to end DACA, threatening to take the administration to court unless the program comes to an end.

Despite his tough stance on immigration, President Donald Trump said he would help DACA recipients. However, when White House chief of staff John Kelly was as homeland security secretary, he told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus last month that the administration would not commit to defending the program.